He was an MLA in the 14th Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly from the Harbour constituency in the Chennai District.
He rose to fame for his role in Sarkar (2018) as Masilamani, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and one of the antagonists.
He has gone on to play political and character roles in films such as Action (2019) and Sembi (2022).
On 28 January 2016 Pala was expelled from AIADMK by party general secretary J. Jayalalithaa after being accused of indulging in activities contrary to party ideology and bringing it into disrepute.
He later met the media and accused the AIADMK government of corruption.